* use debootstrap to get the basic system 

  If you bootstrap from the CD, you will miss a package
  devfsd. You can get the basic bootstrap from the CD
  and then add "include --devfsd" option and get it
  from the debian servers. Only http is supported (no ftp),
  and make sure you have that server in your source.list.
  I had to download the list of packages first with apt-get
  in order for debootstrap to start using http server.

* make swap partition

* get the right /etc/fstab options

* copy kernel modules from user-mode-linux deb package,
  or from your own kernel that you're using to new partition

* make sure you've got /etc/modules with a 'isofs' line
  to ensure that isofs loads, otherwise you won't be able
  to use hosts cd-rom

* setup networking on the host

* make special files (buffered blocked) in /dev

  mknod -m660 ubd0 b 98 0
  mknod -m660 ubd1 b 98 1
  
  ... so on, as many devices as you might need

* tried to boot with such debootraped filesystem, sucees.
  However, packages that dpkg reports (dpkg -l) are installed
  are not on the system. Apt-get can not work either, it misses
  some libraries: zlib1g and libssl. Installed these from mounted
  CD, with dpkg -i path_to_deb_files. When a library is reported
  missing, "dpkg -S name_of_library" will find out to which package
  it belongs.

* copied /etc/init.d/ssh from host and created startup scripts for it
  by doing "update-rc.d ssh defaults".

* created /etc/networking/interfaces, added lo and eht0 (with fixed
  IP).

* removed pcmcia startup scripts with "update-rc.d pcmcia remove"

* problem: many binaries/includes/libraries where missing, although
  debootstrap seem to have installed them, and they were being
  reported as installed by the apt-get i.e. dpkg database.
  Trying to remove, and then install it again with apt-get was
  failing with some errors. After fiddling with it, i found that
  the easiest solution seems to be to edit by hand the dpkg list
  of installed packages (in file /var/lib/dpkg/status) and remove
  the package that you're trying to install. Sometimes, that can
  create conflicts that apt won't be able to resolve. I resolved
  them by removing those conflicting packages from the dpkg list,
  and then reinstalling them all.

* some access issues:
   /tmp has to be owned by nobody/nogroup
   /dev/null has to be writtable for anyone

  (this probably got messed up if i, by mistake, copied without -a)